Supermarkets or food markets are currently displaying fruits and vegetables in bulk, enabling consumers to inspect the quality of the fruits and vegetables and individually select the desired items. The fruits and vegetables are displayed in their original shipping containers, loosely arranged in display bins or, when appropriate, stacked into piles.
Plastic produce bags are usually provided to hold the selected fruits and vegetables. Normally, the plastic bags are cylindrically wound rolls which are placed either horizontally or vertically on a fixed shaft having one end thereof mounted on a stand. The stands are usually conveniently located throughout the produce department. The bags on the wound rolls are separated by perforated severance lines which allow the plastic bags to be serially dispensed from the wound roll.
To take a bag from the wound roll, the consumer must grab the end bag with one hand while holding the next bag and/or the wound roll with the other and then pull with sufficient force to separate the end bag from the wound roll along the severance line. In so doing, the customer often not only separates the end bag from the wound roll, but also deforms or tears the end bag depending upon the amount of force used.
The consumer occasionally has one hand occupied holding the selected fruits or vegetables or some other item which precludes using both hands to separate the end bag from the wound roll. When this happens, the consumer usually attempts to jerk the bag from the wound roll without holding the adjacent bag and/or the wound roll. This usually results in damage to the end bag and/or causes the wound roll to over spin. This free spinning of the wound roll about the fixed shaft causes an excessive number of bags to be reeled from the wound roll. These unwanted bags must then be rewound onto the wound roll or separated therefrom resulting in possible damage and/or waste. Furthermore, after the end bag has been removed from the wound roll, it may be difficult to find the next bag because the next bag will likely lie flush against the wound roll.
The purpose of providing produce bags adjacent the fruits and vegetables in the produce department is to assist consumers with packaging of the selected items. To properly assist consumers it is helpful to provide a plastic bag dispenser which allows only one bag to be dispensed at a time.
One approach to serially dispensing plastic bags may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,424 and related U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,146 to Simhaee which disclose a dispenser having a tongue which engages the separation line between the bag at the end of the wound roll and the next bag. A finger is provided on the upstream side of the tongue with a gap being formed between the finger and the tongue such that as the bag is separated, a portion of the front edge of the next bag is held in the gap, thereby holding the bag in position for the next user. However, in this configuration, there is no provision for ensuring that the plastic bag is guided from the wound roll into contact with the tongue and thereby ensuring contact of the severance line with the tongue for separation of the end bag from the wound roll along the severance line.
In addition, existing devices do not have provision for enabling the quick threading of a replacement wound roll into the container.